Fault In Our Stars Author John Green Loves Watching You Cry

The Fault in our Stars is a hit. Fans of the book might have predicted that, but less than a month after the feature adaptation of John Green's novel hit theaters, the numbers don't lie. While Fox can celebrate the hefty payoff for their investment on this teen love story, John Green jokingly admits taking joy in watching other people cry. Take a look at this highly amusing interview between The Fault in our Stars author John Green and Stephen Colbert:

Green admits he's seen The Fault in our Stars dozens of times, and he's gleeful at the emotional reaction it evokes from people. "I love the movie. I like sneak into theaters and watch it still. It makes me really sad, I cry a lot. But it also fills me up. It makes me joyful to watch other people cry at something I made."

So, I guess John Green is Eric Cartman and we're all Scott Tenorman...

The only thing missing is Radiohead to mock us all.

Also during the interview, Green talks about his charity Project for Awesome and Esther Earl, the teen to whom his book is dedicated. He also discusses connecting to the masses much easier and faster with YouTube than he would with his novels. Colbert jokes about Green being a cult leader, saying teens would gladly hurl themselves off a cliff for him if it meant getting to dig a well in Haiti at the bottom. And from there, Green gets into talking about going to the theater to watch the movie with movie-goers.

Green has actually tweeted about doing this...

Just snuck into a theater to watch #tfios on opening day with an audience. Heard the cast is doing this too!

But just to clarify, when he says "sneak into theaters," he means he goes in incognito, not that he's sneaking in without paying.

While some of the box office dollars this film has raked in are apparently from Green's own wallet, he's not the only one seeing this movie. The Fault in our Stars, which stars Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort as two teens who meet at a cancer support group, has grossed just over $100 million domestically, with another $64 million-plus coming in internationally.

As Deadline points out, on a $12 million budget (less marketing and distribution costs), that's a pretty notable success, and evidence that a hefty budget isn't required for a young adult film to be a box office success. Of course, good source material is, and The Fault in our Stars certainly had that. Fans loved the book and they turned up to see the movie, delivering a $48 million opening weekend. For comparison's sake -- using a recent example that also happens to star Shailene Woodley -- Divergent's opening weekend brought in $54.6 million.